Looking at the world through new eyes
Samsara
A documentary by: Ron Fricke and
Mark Magidson Playing in English at: Excentris,
Forum cinemas Parents’ guide: sexually suggestive scene, nudity To quote the somewhat forgotten ’80s haircut Gowan, man is a strange animal.
Where other creatures fight to survive, we fight for fun. Where other animals sleep when they are tired, we insist on staying awake. And where other animals simply live in the moment, we get lost in the quest for ontological purpose.
Just how curiously warped we are remains a fact we cannot perceive because it’s the consensus reality we all accept, and it looks normal — until it’s reflected back at us in a large-format film. Samsara’s biggest success is emotional and perceptive because even though this latest non-fiction effort from Ron Fricke and Mark Magidson is really just a montage of everyday human experience, it succeeds in reframing the world we live in. And a lot of it is just plain creepy. The first shot suggests exactly what line the filmmakers are going to ride for the duration: Balinese dancers complete a complex series of mechanical moves before a temple. They are wearing makeup that completely flattens their features, but exaggerates their eyes.
The young female dancers barely blink; they seem robotic. Yet be- hind their eyes we can feel a fleeting sense of soulfulness. We can trace the desire for the divine.
They look mechanical, but they are still flesh.
A few shots later, we’re behind the scenes at a Japanese sex toy factory, where a few dozen female bodies cast in silicon lie on red slabs. Enormous plastic boobs protrude from the tiny torsos and giant holes gape between the legs. They offer a closeup of the fingernails, which are convincingly human.
Then they show us the mechanical heads with dozens of servos beneath the silicon skin, allowing them to emulate the signs of emotion: a raised eyebrow, a downward turn of the lips, a smile.
It’s in the gap between the real and the faux, between the fantasy and the fact and between the flesh and the spirit that Samsara weaves a mix of jaw-dropping awe and borderline repulsion.
The film knows the eyes are the windows to the soul from start to finish and it meets our gaze at every turn, urging us to look closer at a world so familiar, and yet so alien.